Motivation Monday – Tell Your Stories

This weekend, I, Jennifer Holik, spoke at the Illinois Family History Expo. One of the lectures I gave was Finishing The Story which is three case studies about my World War I and World War II ancestors who died in service.

My lecture basically goes like this for each case study:

Tell the story I heard from a family member about that soldier

Explain my initial research process

Go through all the records, books, newspaper articles, and more I located on each soldier

The process of proving, disproving, saying it is possible this story I heard is true

And the process of writing the “final” story of my soldier even though all my questions were not answered

When I got to the end of the lecture the room was quiet. I asked if there were any questions and no one said a word. I thanked everyone for attending and after a few more very quiet moments, they clapped and started filing out. A few came up front to talk to me and ask questions or tell me the stories of their military ancestors. A friend of mine attended this lecture and had never heard me give it. When I asked her what she thought and said I was concerned that no one said a word, she said I had her about in tears twice as I told the stories and walked through the case studies.

Don’t underestimate the power of the stories that you may write and tell about your family, whether they were a soldier, baker, mother, politician, whatever. Use Sort Your Story to help tell those stories. Document the information, include copies of records, and write out the notes and stories that go with those records. Piece by piece you too will put your family’s story together.